


A Case of You

by RuinsPlume



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Thorne & Rowling
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Begging, Face Slapping, Hair-pulling, M/M, Polyamory, Room of Requirement, Sibling Incest, Threesome - M/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-01
Updated: 2017-08-01
Packaged: 2018-12-09 23:48:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11679627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RuinsPlume/pseuds/RuinsPlume
Summary: James has been good: ever since Albus got together with Scorpius Malfoy, James has stayed far away from his brother. It doesn’t matter that James is miserable, not if Albus is finally happy. But what if Albus isn’t happy? What’s James supposed to do then?





	A Case of You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [iamisaac (sabethea)](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=iamisaac+%28sabethea%29).



> Thanks to Lefthandofglory for the alpha and the handholding; thanks to Shiftylinguini for the alpha and the beta and more handholding. Thanks to iamisaac for being amazing and inspiring. Title taken from a Joni Mitchell song.

“James! Wait up.”

James, halfway between the castle and the Quidditch pitch, winces. Of all the things he doesn’t feel like doing right now, waiting up for Scorpius Malfoy is at the very bottom of his list, right below the detention he has to serve later—mucking out the Niffler pen without using magic. But he stops walking, in deference to the fact that Scorpius is now Albus’s boyfriend, and has been since just before Christmas hols.

He does not turn around, however, in deference to his own feelings, and the need to banish them from his face before Scorpius reaches him.

It’s early May, five months since Albus told him. James has had five months to get used to the fact that his brother is trying to be a regular person for once in his life, and do things the normal way, without all the special-effects fireworks and tragic opera drama that seems to attend Albus Potter wherever he goes. James should know. He’s part of it, perhaps the biggest part.

Or was, anyway. Until five months ago.

Five months of James pretending to be happy for his brother. Five months of keeping to his own table in the Great Hall, and his own common room, as if Albus had time-turned them back to their parents’ day at Hogwarts, when the houses never sat together or visited back and forth. Five months of not touching Albus.

The only thing that makes it possible for him to keep his promise to himself—that he won’t start things up again, that he won’t drag Albus back down into the hole they’ve made together—is that Albus seems better off without James. Albus has got a hard enough time as it is, and having sex with your brother does not exactly sit lightly on a person’s heart, as James knows all too well. The only problem is that while James’s conscience might be clearer, his heart still aches every goddamn day. He has scarcely been able to look at Albus this term without feeling a wave of jealousy and desire and regret wash over him with such force that sometimes he actually has to sit down.

Scorpius pulls up alongside him, out of breath with the exertion of having run across the grounds. Scorpius isn’t much of an athlete, James thinks.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” he says awkwardly, panting a little.

James waits, trying not to scowl. Scorpius’s robes are undone, his fair cheeks flushed pink. His tie is crooked and his pale hair hangs lank on his forehead. He looks like a puppy who wants a pat, with that slightly woebegone air around him that girls think is sweet and boys like to bully.

“I know we don’t—I mean, I know we don’t—” Scorpius begins, and stops again. He doesn’t need to finish, though; James knows what he’s trying to say: they’ve tacitly agreed to stay out of each other’s way, for Albus’s sake as much as for their own, and Scorpius accosting James on his way down to the Quidditch pitch is a clear violation of that.

James waits, and it’s all he can do not to start tapping his foot. He was going to go flying before Arithmancy, for Merlin’s sake.

“It’s Albus,” Scorpius blurts.

Fuck. He might have known.

“What’s he doing?” James asks, trying to sound calm.

Scorpius’s lower lip disappears inside his mouth. After a moment he says, “He’s—he’s just torn up his Charms essay. But it’s not _what_ he’s doing, it’s how he’s doing it. He seems so—reckless, like when he—when we—in fourth year, you know. And now he’s sitting up on the ramparts of the astronomy tower, and he won’t come down.”

“He’s not threatening to jump or anything, is he?” James asks. In response, Scorpius’s magic flares at him, stronger and sharper than James had ever imagined it would be.

“If he were threatening to jump, do you think I’d have left him there?” Scorpius retorts.

“He has a thing about jumping off stuff,” James mutters.

“Do you think I don’t know that? Look, I wouldn’t have just run all over the school looking for you if I didn’t—if Albus—” Scorpius pauses, then puts his hands on his hips and looks James square in the face. “Look. Your brother’s really scaring me, and I don’t know what to do, and he said something about you, so I—” Scorpius falters, then seems to lose his nerve and falls silent. 

“Said what about me?” James demands, more sharply than he’d intended.

Scorpius opens and closes his hands, as if he could wring the words out of the space between himself and James.

“I asked him why he was so miserable and he said you would know.”

Fuck. Fuck the entire Slytherin house and its founder. Fuck the Sorting Hat that put Albus in there in the first place. Fuck their father for naming him Albus Severus, which anyone could have told him was a fucking bad idea. Fuck both their parents for having two boys who used to do everything together, and loved each other so much that one day it became too much, and they really did do everything together, and ruined everything. Fuck James for ever having let it happen in the first place, because maybe it’s his fault that Albus is like this. Although even as he thinks that, he knows it’s not true. Albus has been this way his whole life, and he and James only started messing around a year and a half ago.

A long, knife-cut of worry has been steadily opening inside James in the last few moments, and now, in the silence, James takes a breath and feels how deep it is, the wound of his fear, a gash of pain and heartbeat that pulses with all the times he’s been sick with worry for his brother. All the times he tried to make it better, which, depending on your perspective, either succeeded spectacularly—albeit temporarily—or doomed them both to hell.

“Okay,” he says to Scorpius. “Let’s go.” And then, because he feels guilty for being such a prat to him earlier, even if it was just inside his own mind, James adds, “I’m glad you told me.”

Scorpius’s face breaks into such a mess of relief that James has to struggle to keep from wincing again. The kid’s practically got a walking “kick me” sign taped to his back. And would have, except that that sign seems permanently affixed to Albus.

As they hurry up the staircases, James thinks belatedly that it would have been quicker had he gone on to the broom shed and got his broom out and simply flown the two of them up to the Astronomy tower, and the hell with the detention he would certainly get. As it is, he takes the stairs two by two, Scorpius on his heels. They don’t talk. There isn’t anything to say, really. He certainly can’t say what’s in his mind:

_Scorpius, I know I’m a prat for hating you and you don’t deserve it, but I’m so jealous I can hardly look at you._

_When you put your hand on Albus’s arm, I feel sick. When he kisses you—and I’ve seen him kiss you, at Quidditch games, and in the library when he thinks no one’s looking, and that time I went into the Slytherin common room to tell him Dad was visiting and you two were there on the sofa—I want to rip you away from him and gather him up and keep him for myself._

_I want to hold Albus again. I want to smooth the lines from his forehead with my mouth. I want to whisper in his ear that I’ll make him feel better. I want to make him feel better. I know what he needs. I can help him. I always can. He’s better after, sometimes for days. But I can’t give him that anymore. Because you are. I hope you are. No, I don’t hope it. I can’t stand to think that you are. Because Albus should still be mine._

When they burst through the door at the top of the tower, James sees Albus at once. He’s sitting directly across from them, slotted between two crenellations, straddling the tower wall as if on horseback. Albus’s inside leg is just a few feet above the stone deck, while his outside leg, which James can’t see, is dangling some two hundred feet above the ground. Even from where James is standing he can tell Albus has been crying. His face is flushed and streaked with ink, as if after having torn up his Charms essay, he wiped his face with it.

“Hello, older brother,” Albus says.

James turns to Scorpius and raises one finger the tiniest bit, meaning wait here. Scorpius flicks his eyes down then up again, in equally tiny agreement. James crosses the five yards between himself and his brother slowly, and then he’s standing beside Albus, closer than he’s been in weeks, and then he’s reaching up and touching his brother’s thigh, he’s snaking his hand around his brother’s back, he’s taking hold of his hip, the hip jutting out over the empty space Albus could fall through, and he’s pulling Albus toward him, back to safe ground.

Albus lets himself be pulled, which James wasn’t expecting. James staggers backward, trips. Albus lands on one foot and hops, trying not to fall.His opposite foot drags across the flat of the stones on which he’d been sitting, making him look like some sort of mad ballet dancer trying to do barre exercises in Hogwarts robes. They wind up clutching at each other for balance; then James regains his footing, Albus gets his leg down, and they both let go.

“What’s the matter?” James asks.

Albus kicks at the broad stones beneath their feet. “Why don’t you tell me,” he says. “Tell me exactly what I’ve done to get on your shitlist to the point where you won’t even look at me when we’re in the same room together. Won’t sit with me or talk to me or acknowledge that you know me, even?”

James’s eyes dart involuntarily toward Scorpius, still by the door to the staircase.

“Is that why you’ve torn up your homework and are scaring your boyfriend half to death?” James asks.

“It’s got nothing to do with him,” Albus says.

“It’s got everything to do with him,” James says. “He’s really worried about you.”

“But it’s you I’m talking about, isn’t it, Jamie? You’re the one making me feel like absolute shite—”

“I’m trying to give you a chance at being happy with Scorpius!” James hisses, doing his best to keep his voice down.

“Well, I’m not happy, all right?” Albus yells.

Scorpius, either because of the yell or because he heard his James speak his name, breaks from his position by the door and trots across the stone.

“Can we not do this here?” James says to Albus. He turns to Scorpius. “Look, Scorpius, I’m sorry. Albus was right, this has nothing at all to do with you—”

“Yes it does,” Albus says. “You’re the bloody reason for it, Scorp.”

“For God’s sake, Albus—” James begins, but he is interrupted by Scorpius, who suddenly does a very un-Scorpius-like thing. He puts one hand on Albus’s chest and then, hesitating only a moment, puts his other hand on James, and pushes, lightly. James is so startled that he takes a step back, and so does Albus. They both look at Scorpius.

“Stop fighting,” Scorpius says, anxious but determined. He glances at Albus, as if the instructions for his next move are going to appear on Albus’s forehead. And maybe they do, in an ink only Scorpius can read, because Scorpius turns to James, suddenly decisive.

“We need to talk,” he says. “And I rather fancy sitting down. If the Room will let us in, let’s go there. All right, Albus?”

Albus chews his lower lip and nods. Neither of them ask James if it’s all right with him, so James says, “It’s all right with me as well,” in case either of them is listening. And then they’re off, Scorpius leading the way, Albus following, and James bringing up the rear, wondering how he got to last place so quickly, and suspecting that he’s the one who put himself there.

They stand in front of the stone wall on the seventh floor corridor, concentrating. _We need a place to talk privately, we need a place to talk privately,_ he thinks, willing the Room of Requirement to give them only that and not a setting that more accurately reflects the other thoughts and desires which have sprung up in his mind. Those are only desires, after all, and not true requirements. How could they be requirements? He’s lived five months without them, and it hasn’t killed him yet. Not so as you’d notice, anyway.

For a minute, nothing happens. Just as James is on the verge of telling the others that someone else must be using the Room, the wall shimmers and dissolves. They step forward through the gray mist that has appeared where a moment before there were solid stones, and then they are in.

In a room that’s that’s the exact size and shape of James’s bedroom at home. Even the walls are the same—wainscoting on the lower half, and the slanting attic ceiling, and the dark red throw rug on the floor. But that’s not the worst thing. Instead of it simply being an actual replica of his room, which is bad enough, in this version the desk and chair and clothes dresser are gone, and in their place is a fucking double bed. Which James does not have at home. The only other piece of furniture in the room is James’s bedside table, on which sit three glasses of water. 

Albus starts to laugh, but it’s not a happy sound. He turns to James.

“You imagined it too, then?”

James knows what Albus means. James’s bedroom is where it happened between them the first time, two summers ago, and where it happened the last time, over Christmas. He doesn’t know whether Albus was imagining the first time or the last time, or one of the many times in between; he doesn’t even know whether he was; all he knows is that, now that he’s seen it, it seems inevitable that this is what the Room would produce.

Undaunted by the appearance of the bed, Scorpius strides across the room and sits down near the headboard. He reaches for one of the water glasses, and drinks without stopping until the glass is empty.

“I take credit for Requiring the water,” he says, wiping his mouth. “I was thirsty from running.”

“The Potters take credit for Requiring the bed,” Albus says, flopping down on its centre. “Come on, big brother. Can’t run, can’t hide.”

James stays where he is. He knows what will happen if he sits down next to Albus on that bed. It’s a conditioned response, one that happens every single time: he’ll have a massive fucking hard-on in ten seconds flat.

“James?” Scorpius’s take-charge attitude seems to have vanished with the glass of water, leaving behind the tentative, hopeful tone James is used to, along with the facial expression that makes James alternately pity him and want to smack him. “Come sit down, okay?”

James goes reluctantly to the bed and sits by the footboard, trying to take up as little space as possible. He crosses his legs at the thigh and hunches over himself and does not look at his brother. But he can feel Albus scrunching the slipcover—which is the slipcover on James’s bed at home—in his fist, tugging at the fabric as if he’d like to rip it.

And James’s cock should not be hard. It should not be. His brother is teetering on the edge of a breakdown. His brother is in a relationship with somebody else. And that somebody is sitting right here on the fucking bed with them.

“Albus,” Scorpius begins. “What did you mean when you said I was the reason for James...for James...”

“For James treating me like I don’t exist,” Albus interrupts. “Because I’m not enough of a fucking pariah as it is, without my own brother pretending he doesn’t know me.”

“You know why I’ve been like that,” James explodes, his anger at Albus finally surfacing and wiping out—thank God—his burgeoning erection. “You know perfectly well why I can’t be around you, and you might bloody thank me for keeping my distance, instead of acting like I’m trying to ruin your life!” 

He stops, horrified. He’s said much too much in front of Scorpius.

“But it feels ruined anyway,” Albus says miserably, before Scorpius can ask the obvious question— _Why can’t you be around him, then?_ Albus blinks rapidly, staving back tears, James knows. His thick eyelashes are still matted from the crying that happened earlier. James wants nothing more than to gather Albus into his arms and kiss away every bit of loneliness and wrongness and pain. “I can’t stand it anymore,” Albus continues, his voice shaky. He turns to James. “Do you know how bad it feels when you won’t even look at me? It feels like you hate me, just like...like everyone else does,” he finishes, his voice trailing off to a whisper.

“I don’t hate you, Al,” Scorpius says. He strokes Albus’s cheek with the tips of his fingers. Lightly, the way Albus used to like James to do it, and Albus turns toward the touch. James flops forward over his legs and shut his eyes. “And James doesn’t hate you, either,” Scorpius continues. “I know he doesn’t. So why are you doing it, James?” Scorpius asks, less gently. “Ignoring him, I mean. It hurts him a lot.”

James holds his knees and breathes and tries to think. Why did he ever think coming to the Room of Requirement with these two was a good idea? What can he possibly say? Some lie about Albus needing his own space, needing to come out from behind James and spread his own wings? Would Scorpius buy that?

Beside him on the bed, Albus sighs and shifts on the mattress. James doesn’t have to look to know that now Albus is sitting up, cross-legged, the hair he inherited from their father sticking crazily up around his lovely, unhappy face like a broken black halo. And then Albus speaks.

“James ignores me,” he says—quietly, matter-of-factly—“because if he pays attention to me, we’ll wind up fucking again. It’s what always happens.”

There is a very long silence.

 _I need the floor to swallow me up,_ James silently begs the Room.

“I kind of thought that was it,” Scorpius says at last.

James opens his eyes then, and stares at Albus, who is looking back at him, equally surprised. Albus’s beautiful face, streaked with ink and crying, is open and lovely and utterly transparent. _I never told him anything until just now,_ Albus’s expression says, and James receives the unspoken communication so accurately—as if they were still as close as ever—that his heart turns over in pain.

Albus glances tentatively at Scorpius. “How long have you known?” he asks.

“Since before we got together,” Scorpius murmurs. “Since...since always, I guess.”

James’s chest gives another painful throb. Because it has been since always. Ever since he could have feelings like this, they’ve always been for Al.

James puts his head in his hands, the impossibility of the situation washing over him afresh. These past five months of deprivation have been useless. They have changed nothing. His feelings are the exactly same as they’ve always been. As they always will be. That’s what always means.

Fingers brush lightly over his back, settle on his shoulder. James raises his head just a bit. Scorpius pulls back his hand, retreating to the other side of Albus, still lying on his side between them. 

“It’s all right,” Scorpius says. He looks down, blushing furiously. “I mean...” James waits, but Scorpius does not continue.

“Thanks for not telling,” James says. “About me and Albus.”

Scorpius looks at him curiously. “Who did you think I was going to tell?” he asks.

“You could have told me you knew,” Albus says.

“I rather hoped you’d tell me yourself,” Scorpius replies, with just a tinge of hurt in his tone.

“It’s not exactly the kind of thing you bring up to your new boyfriend, is it,” Albus says, in the self-mocking tone that James hates. “Oh, by the way Scorp, I’ve been having it off with my brother.”

“Not since you two got together,” James says quickly. “Not even once, Scorpius. I promise.”

“Why’d you stop?” Scorpius asks.

“Because of you,” James says. “Because...because it was the right thing to do. Because you make Albus happy, and it was a chance, a chance for Albus to be happy, to be....” he trails off. He can’t say, “normal.” He can’t say, “like everyone else.” He can’t even really say “happy,” because it’s quite obvious that Albus isn’t happy, not at all.

“I want him to be happy too,” Scorpius says. “I want what you want, James.”

James gives a bitter half-laugh at that, because if Scorpius actually knew what James wanted right now, he wouldn’t—

Oh.

Scorpius does know. Scorpius’s eyes are on the floor, on the knotty floorboards that exactly mimic James’s bedroom back home. His pale cheeks flame as he says quietly, “I love Albus. And if he...if he wants....” He blinks up at James.

James’s cock fucking surges. His heart begins pounding painfully in his chest and he has to sit on his hands because suddenly they’re clammy and maybe even trembling a little with the knowledge that he might get to touch Albus again. He feels a flood of tenderness for Scorpius, this boy who loves his brother so much he’d—share him with James? Is that really what Scorpius is on the verge of offering?

James looks to Albus for confirmation. In lieu of meeting his brother’s eyes, Albus sits up, scooting around behind Scorpius and wrapping himself around his boyfriend, his chest against Scorpius’s back. James feels ten thousand things at once. Albus attending to Scorpius is a good sign, a sign that Albus's dangerous, self-punishing mood is nearly over; but the sight of Albus holding Scorpius like that is too much. Fuck it all—of course James isn’t going to get Albus back. Of course he’s not. Albus is over the worst of his mood, the dangerous part is past, so now James should be a good brother and get up and leave. Leave and do what? He can’t even wank, because he’d be wanking to Al. He should skive off Arithmancy and go flying, just fly the fuck away, far far away from all of this—

And then Albus’s hand is caressing his thigh. Pressing down on his thigh. Holding him there against the bed.

All right, change of plans, then.

James is never getting off this bed as long as Albus is touching him.

His erection is tenting his trousers. Scorpius can see it, if he’s looking. Is he? James glances up. Scorpius is leaning back against Albus’s chest, whispering something in his ear. James closes his eyes again. He doesn’t want to see that. But he can’t leave: Albus is still touching him.

“You sure?” he hears Albus say.

“I’m sure,” Scorpius answers. And then Albus’s hand on James’s thigh moves just a bit closer to his groin.

 _Please,_ James thinks. _Oh please. Just once more._

“Er, James,” Scorpius says, all breath and blush. “James. Would you. Kiss. Albus, while I–er. Watch.” His nerve seems to die away on the last word, but when James looks at him, Scorpius’s face looks anything but uncertain. His gray eyes are bright, the pupils large and dark in those pale irises. “Yeah,” Scorpius adds, “That was me saying that.” He puts his hand to his forehead as if shielding his eyes from too-bright sun, his cheeks colouring deeper pink.

“You’re not going to be able to watch with your hand over your eyes,” Albus says, and then leans forward and plucks Scorpius’s hand away, bringing those long, pale Malfoy fingers to Albus’s lap and settling them at the crotch of his trousers. Scorpius lets out a little hiss of pleasure and palms Albus. And then Albus turns to James and kisses him.

Albus kissing him. Albus’s tongue in his mouth, oh God, it’s so good, it’s so perfect it hurts. And then Albus’s hand is on his cock through his trousers, just like Scorpius’s hand is on Albus’s cock, and James is achingly hard against Albus’s sure hand. A moan escapes from low in James’s throat.

Albus is kissing him the way he always did, kissing the way he does everything—as if it’s his last day on earth, and he has to make sure he feels it in every single cell. As if he’s handing over his soul, as if James is the only one who can keep it safe for him.

Scorpius asked to see a kiss, but there’s no way in hell they’re going to limit themselves to kissing. They never could before and they won’t be able to now. If Scorpius stays, he’s going to see James and Albus fuck, right here on this bed.

“Oh,” says Scorpius. “That’s....Um. Albus.”

Albus breaks the kiss and looks up at his boyfriend, but his hand stays on James’s cock. James has never loved Albus more than he does right then. Albus won’t leave him again, that hand says. The weight of certainty. A reassuring squeeze.

“It’s really kind of...arousing,” Scorpius squeaks. “If I...could I...” He looks at James. “You wouldn’t mind?”

Scorpius is asking James for permission? To do what, James wonders. To watch? To wank? To touch his own boyfriend? Scorpius Malfoy is going to drive him up the fucking wall.

“I don’t mind,” James says, and it’s true—Scorpius can do whatever the fuck he wants, provided Albus keeps his hand on James’s cock. It takes him by surprise, then, when Scorpius leans forward and kisses not Albus, but James himself.

Before James can really process more than _smaller mouth, tongue-flick,_ Albus has joined the kiss again, his mouth hot and hungry against James. Albus. James feels a moan slip out of him again, the sound reverberating all the way into the root of his cock. But then Albus turns out of the kiss, moving his mouth to Scorpius’s. James is still pressed up against both their faces, and as Albus turns away the bitter ache of jealousy knifes through James as he realises Albus is kissing Scorpius the same way he kisses James—desperately, hungrily, as if his life depends on it. But then Scorpius breaks the kiss with Albus, and turns to James, his mouth finding James’s lips. Tentative at first, then stronger, offering Albus’s kiss back to James.

Scorpius is trying to share, James realizes. Is sharing. With more grace than James ever managed. He feels a rush of gratitude toward Scorpius, and shame at his own ill will and jealousy, born out of the fear that he’d lost Albus forever. He melts against Scorpius in relief, kissing him gratefully. Albus continues to palm him, stroking James's cock through his trousers, and James begins to get into the kiss: Scorpius Malfoy is a pretty hot kisser, actually. He’s captured James’s tongue in his mouth and is doing some very inspired things with it—pressury, suctiony things, not too fast—and now someone has got his hands up under James’s shirt now—Albus, because he’s twisting James’s nipples in that way, that way that goes right to James’s cock. Albus knows it: he unzips James’s jeans and finds the slit in his boxers and maneuvers his fingers in and then. Oh, God then. Albus’s hand is on James’s cock again. Albus taking him out. The combination of his brother’s hot hand and the cool air of the room are too much for James—he groans so loudly Scorpius stops kissing him. All three of them draw back a moment, surveying one another. Albus and Scorpius are both red-faced, hair disheveled and lips swollen, and some of the ink on Albus’s face has got onto Scorpius’s cheek. Albus looks from James to Scorpius and back again.

 _You’re going to fuck me, right?_ he asks James with his eyebrows, while his hand gives a little squeeze around James’s prick.

 _You’re goddamn right I am,_ James thinks back, and his cock jerks in Albus’s hand in response. Then he lets his eyes flicker from Albus to Scorpius and back again. He wants to let Albus know that he wants Scorpius included too. Scorpius who loves Albus so much he’s willing to let him fuck around with James if it will make Albus happy again.

James reaches out and strokes Scorpius’s cheek, fingers coming to rest on his lower lip. Scorpius’s eyes crinkle up in pleasure, and he sucks the tip of James’s finger into his mouth, his tongue stroking lightly across the pad.

Albus’s hand begins stroking the shaft of James’s cock, slow and easy, teasing. James gasps, and Albus grins wickedly. Then Albus turns to Scorpius.

“James and I are going to fuck,” he says. “You know that, right?”

Scorpius’s assent comes out a half-whimper as his cheeks flush again, reddening like he’s been hit with an Incarnadinus.

James turns to Albus. “I want Scorpius to fuck you too,” he says. He didn’t know he was going to say that. But it’s the truth. He wants to share. He does. He doesn’t want to take Albus away from Scorpius anymore. He just wants to be invited back himself.

Albus stills his hand on James’s cock and gazes at his brother, his face flooded with relief and—yes, happiness. This is how beautiful Albus looks when he is happy. His green eyes shine until those thick lashes flutter down as he leans forward to kiss James. Even his kiss tastes like relief—long and sweet as a drink of water after five months of being so terribly thirsty. As they kiss, James senses on the periphery of his attention that Scorpius is getting his robes off, then shrugging out of the button-down shirt and trousers he’s got on underneath. Albus breaks away from the kiss with James to watch, his hand still possessively on James’s cock. James turns too, just in time to see Scorpius get his pants off. And fuck, who’d have thought it? Scorpius Malfoy is _hung._

“You want to see me fuck Albus?” Scorpius asks. 

_I just fucking said I did,_ a voice in James’s brain complains, but it’s quickly shouted down by other, louder voices, including the one that comes out of his mouth. “Yeah,” this voice says. “I’ll get him ready for you.”

And then Albus makes the sound. The one in the back of his throat, a whimper that ends in something rougher. It’s the sound Albus makes when he submits. When he gets on his knees and raises his beautiful eyes to James’s face and waits, so hungry. So happy to be told what to do. Relieved of the responsibility for his own happiness and begging James to take control instead. It’s the sound that lets James do things like pull his brother’s hair, which makes the whimper grow louder and deeper inside Albus. It’s the sound that lets him slap Albus’s face, sometimes, until Albus is keening with it, begging James for more, to take him deeper into letting go. 

James pushes Albus’s hand off him and wraps his own hand around himself instead. He gives his cock a few slow strokes, easing himself into his role. “Get on your knees, then,” James orders his brother. 

Albus drops to the middle of the throw rug in front of the bed and puts his hands behind his back. 

“And you stand up,” James says to Scorpius. 

Scorpius, for once, does what he’s told without asking for confirmation. He scrambles to his feet and stands before Albus, his calves pressed to the edge of the mattress, his legs apart. His cock–which is pretty fucking incredible–juts straight up against his abdomen, the tip of the head just below his navel. James isn’t big like that. He’s not even quite medium-sized. But looking at Scorpius, he’s surprised to find he doesn’t feel the usual pang of jealousy; not now, not when he’s going to get to have Albus again. In light of that, nothing else matters. James stands up too, his jeans hanging off his hips. 

Then he reaches around Albus’s head and takes hold of his hair and pulls, forcing his head up and back. 

“You’ve been way out of line,” James says. 

Albus nods. 

“You scared the hell out of Scorpius, and me too, sitting up there on the tower. What do you have to say for yourself?”

“I’m sorry,” Albus says, his eyes fluttering down to the rug. “I don’t want to act like that. But Jamie―”

James steps forward, pressing his cock to Albus’s face to stop him from saying more. If Albus finishes whatever he was going to say that starts with “Jamie,” they’ll start fucking talking about things, and that’s not what needs to happen. So he presses his brother’s head against himself, Albus’s breath hot on his shaft, The tip of Albus’s nose buried in the curls at his groin. Albus against him again. He fists both his hands in his brother’s hair and pulls, hard, all his desire and relief and bitterness tightening in his fists until he feels Albus’s body go limp beneath him. Then he lets go, and something inside him lets go as well. 

“Scorpius is going to fuck you,” James says, a bit more gently, “and then I’m going to fuck you too. And you’re going to behave yourself, understand?”

Albus bows his head again. “Yes. I―yes. But James. Would you―” Albus looks up, his deep, sad eyes searching James’s face, pleading for something his mouth won’t say. 

James, quick as the seeker he is, reaches out and smacks Albus hard on the cheek.

Albus starts, gasping and blinking hard. Scorpius too, has gasped audibly. James darts a glance at him and sees that Scorpius looks truly alarmed. Interesting―Scorpius and Albus don’t do that together, then. Well, that’s not James’s problem. If Scorpius wants to watch the Potter boys fuck, he’s going to see it like it is. 

“Again,” Albus whispers, and James uses his other hand this time, catching Albus off guard as his right cheek takes the slap. Albus exhales hugely, his eyelids fluttering closed as his body processes the sensations. James steals another glance at Scorpius, who for once has the sense to stay silent, wide-eyed though he is. James turns his attention to Albus again. 

He places his hands gently against Albus’s cheeks, the reddened skin hot on his palms. Albus looks up at him. “We’re going to fuck you,” James says. “Hard and long. We’re going to give you everything you want. And you’re going to take it, and you’re going to be good for us. Good now and good after. Promise?”

Albus closes his eyes, biting at his lower lip. James smacks him again, twice in quick succession, and from beneath Albus’s thick lashes, tears spill down his face. They’re tears of relief, James knows, or of release. Something like that. They talked about it once, back when it was freaking James out a little, and Albus explained. Now the tears run in rivulets over his slapped cheeks until Albus opens his eyes again, draws a shuddering breath and nods. 

“I promise,” he says. 

“Good,” James says, wondering if Scorpius appreciates the effect the slapping had on Albus. If Scorpius knows anything at all about how Albus operates, he’ll understand. James looks back at him. Scorpius is still a little white around the eyeballs, but he’s also begun stroking that fantastic cock of his, hand sliding almost absently down his shaft and then slowly back up again. Feeling James’s gaze, perhaps, Scorpius raises his head and when their eyes meet, Scorpius gives James the smallest of nods. Good. Scorpius gets it, then. James returns his attention to Albus. 

“It’s time to make it up to your boyfriend,” he tells his brother. “I want to see you suck him off. Don’t let him come; just get him ready to fuck you.” 

“Right.” Albus turns on his knees and starts to shuffle toward Scorpius, but stops almost immediately, looking back up at James. He reaches up and touches James’s hip, just inside the open waistband of his jeans. His fingers are cold, and the touch of those fingers burns through James like an Incendio. 

“Yes?” he asks. 

Albus starts crying in earnest. “Please let me get up a minute,” he begs. “I want—I need, just—please, Jamie. Just put your arms around me again. I can’t wait anymore, I need to feel you. Please.” 

Before James can respond, Scorpius comes to life, seizing Albus under the arms and dragging him up. 

“Here,” he says awkwardly, as if Albus is a parcel James asked him to pass. “It’s okay. “It’s okay with me.” He gives Albus a little push, and then James is holding him properly at last. His shuddering, crying beautiful mess of a brother. Albus wraps his arms around James’s back and clutches him like someone drowning, leaning into him so hard that James goes off balance and sinks backward onto the bed, pulling Albus down with him. 

“Take your clothes off,” Albus pleads, letting go of James to pull off his own robes and shuck his joggers. 

James has never done anything more quickly. He kicks his jeans and pants away and yanks his tee shirt over his head and then Albus is lying naked on top of him, kissing him like it’s the end of the world. And maybe it is, because James is never giving this up again. Whatever else happens, whatever it costs him. Albus belongs here, in his brother’s arms. Grinding his cock against James’s, oh, God, and it’s as good as it ever was, it’s better than anything, and it’s just as wrong as it ever was, he’s just as damned, they both are–or maybe not. Because Scorpius is here. And Scorpius said it was okay. James eases out of the kiss and holds Albus’s head tight against his shoulder and looks to see what Scorpius is doing. 

What Scorpius is doing is standing naked beside the bed, stroking that fucking basilisk of a cock of his, his hand slick with conjured lube. 

“Go on,” he says.

“You want to fuck him?” James asks. 

Scorpius gives him look somewhere between disdain and incredulity.

Right. Dumb question, James Sirius Potter. “I mean, fuck him while I hold him,” James clarifies, settling onto his back and pulling his brother tight against him. “Just like this.” He strokes Albus’s hair and brings his lips to the raised ridge of Albus’s ear. “Shift up on your knees,” he whispers to his brother. 

Without letting go of James, Albus does. Raising his arse in the air has the effect of bring his weight forward into his chest, which presses heavily against James’s. The weight sends a fresh surge of arousal through James. He’s only half hard, but he’s feeling nearly overwhelmed by the sensation of Albus against him again. He runs his hands down the length of Albus’s body and cups his arse cheeks. 

“Al,” he says. “Gonna spread you open now. Gonna hold you open for your boyfriend. He’s gonna fuck you just like this, with you in my arms where you belong.”

Albus makes the sound again and James’s cock floods fully hard. Scorpius climbs onto the bed, nudging James’s legs apart so he can get on his knees behind Albus’s arse, inside the tangle of two sets of Potter legs. James grips Albus’s arse cheeks and spreads him wider, simultaneously dragging the tip of his tongue across Albus’s upper lip. 

“Open up and take it,” he murmurs. “Show Scorpius how well you can follow my orders. Give him your hole.” 

“Yes—oh, fuck—yes,” Albus moans. He’s already under, James can tell by the way he’s breathing. “Scorpius, please, can you. Jamie, don’t let go.” 

“Never,” James says. Nearly choking on the truth of it. He gives Albus his tongue, flicking it in and out of his brother’s half-open mouth. Albus lets out a soft wail as Scorpius bends low and begins tonguing his arsehole while James holds him open. Albus bucks backward, wanting more. James moves with him, rocking beneath him, tongue-fucking his mouth while Scorpius rims his hole. 

Albus moans around James’s tongue.

“You want me to fuck you now?” Scorpius says. 

Albus lifts his head away from James’s mouth enough to answer. “Ye—yes.” He seems too wrecked to say more. But Scorpius, it seems, wants to hear more than that.

“Tell me what you want,” he says, his usual excited tenor replaced with something lower.

“I—” the word ends in a bald, needy moan. Albus drops his head to James’s chest. His forehead is sweating, slick against James’s skin. “Come on, Scorpius,” he pants. “Please.” 

“First tell me where you want it,” Scorpius insists, raising himself up on his knees, away from Albus. James feels Scorpius’s magic again, a pale emerald shimmer that ripples above Albus for a moment before settling around his naked body like a cloak. Possessively, protectively, and somehow very gentle, but immovable. Scorpius is staking his claim too.

“In my hole,” Albus whimpers over his shoulder. “Please, something, your fingers, your cock. I need—I need something, you know, what I need, please give me your cock.” He turns back to his brother. “James, can you make him. Fuck me. Please.”

Behind Albus, Scorpius silently shakes his head once. Not yet, he mouths at James. 

Ah. So this is what Albus and Scorpius do together, then. This is how Scorpius breaks him down. James holds Albus tight against him and looks up at Scorpius, who, kneeling in front of Albus’s spread arsehole with that magnificent cock in his hand, looks positively radiant. As well he might. James feels something inside himself open, and his own magic flows out of him toward Scorpius, mingled with arousal and forgiveness and maybe even love—just the opposite of what he’s felt all year whenever he thinks of Scorpius Malfoy. And it feels bloody wonderful. James would kiss him if he could reach him. 

Instead he turns his attention back to Albus. “I could make him,” he says, “but I won’t. It’s your job to earn it, isn’t it?”

Albus’s cheeks flush as pink as they did when James smacked him. “Yes,” he whispers. 

“Tell James,” Scorpius growls behind him, “how much you missed him.” 

“So much.” Albus answers at once. “I couldn’t sleep sometimes. I’d slap my own face sometimes, trying to put myself under, but it never worked, and I’d—I’d charm things to, you know.”

“To what?” Scorpius prompts. 

“To use,” Albus whispers. “To fuck me.”

“Good boy,” Scorpius says, and lines up his cock. 

“Oh—” Albus’s face tenses, his eyes squeezing shut in concentration for a moment. James knows that look. Scorpius has breached him. 

Albus’s face ripples in concentration as his body adjusts. Scorpius has got the head of his cock in, but he’s not moving. 

“Go on,” Scorpius says, stroking Albus’s lower back. “Tell James what you wanted him to do.” 

“I just wanted you to come back to me, Jamie,” Albus blurts. He turns his head, looking back over his shoulder at Scorpius. “I never felt that way when you and I were actually together,” he says to Scorpius. “I promise. Whenever you were touching me, it was always just you. But all the other times, when we couldn’t sleep together, when you were away for hols or family business, and Easter, Easter was the worst, we went home and James—” he turns back to his brother. “You wouldn’t even talk to me, not even at home, you wouldn’t be alone with me ever, you warded your door—Oh Scorpius, please move, I can’t take it—and it wasn’t even so Mum and Dad wouldn’t know, because even when they were out—oh, God, you two, please, you’re both here, I need this so much, I promise I’ll be good, I’ll be better, I won’t do shit like I did today, just stay with me, I—please Scorp, please, I can’t take it, push all the way in, I need, I need—fuck, fuck, please.” The last word comes out a sob. His elbows begin to tremble, and then Albus collapses on James’s chest, his shoulders shaking, his face buried in James’s neck. 

This is all James has ever wanted. Forget Quidditch, forget his N.E.W.T.s, forget his other friends, forget the rest of the family if he can have this. His brother’s naked body pressed close against his own. Albus in his arms. 

“Fuck him,” James commands. 

Scorpius grips Albus’s hips and slides in. Slowly, slowly, so slowly and yet without stopping, that magnificent cock disappearing millimeter by millimeter into Albus, who grips James’s shoulders and holds on for dear life, his knees shaking, but the rest of his body otherwise still. 

James’s cock, which no one has touched since Albus got to his knees, decides it too has a new appreciation for Scorpius Malfoy.

“Now move,” James says. 

Scorpius begins fucking, that same ruthlessly slow pace.

“Oh God,” Albus moans. “Oh god, yes.” 

“You like that?” James cards his hands into his brother’s crazy hair and closes his fist, pulling up until Albus lifts his head. 

“Yes,” Albus slurs. “Yes. Jamie, Scorpius, yes.” 

He’s pretty far under. Scorpius must sense it too, because suddenly he picks up speed, gripping Albus more firmly and bucking into him, the fronts of his thighs slamming into the back of Albus’s arse and legs as he fucks. Scorpius has been holding back this whole time, James realizes, waiting until Albus was really undone before letting go himself. James feels another rush of affection for Scorpius, because it’s what James would do for Albus as well. Did do. And will do now. His own cock is lying on his belly in a kind of suspended state of intense arousal, but he won’t touch himself, won’t do anything to tip himself forward and start gathering speed to the release he’ll eventually get; not yet, anyway. He releases his left hand’s grip on Albus’s arse and slides that hand into the space between his belly and his brother’s where both their cocks are bobbing, but not touching, because Albus has his arse in the air, save for the occasional brush of skin when Scorpius gives an exceptionally hard thrust, making Albus’s prick bounce down and rub against James’s own. Albus probably isn’t aware of it anyway, he’s so over-stimulated, but he’ll be aware of this: James snakes his fingers around behind his brother’s sac and eases his balls forward, then circles his shaft as well. Albus isn’t going to come until James is ready for him to, no matter how hard Scorpius pounds his prostate. 

Albus gives a moan of relief at the feel of James’s hand around his cock, thinking, perhaps, that James is going to wank him. The moan changes to a short broken cry, however, when James tightens his fingers.

“James—I can’t. I can’t.” 

James knows Albus doesn’t really mean this. If he did, he’d safeword— _Hufflepuff._ But he won’t. He can take much more. Scorpius seems to know this as well; he ignores Albus’s protestations, concentrating on his own pleasure now.

“Fuck him,” James encourages. “Wanna see you fuck him, Scorpius. Break him down for me, and then I’ll fuck him too.”

“God,” Albus gasps, “Oh god, please. Please, just please. I can’t. Please.” 

James tightens his fingers. If he hadn’t made his hand into a cock ring, Albus would be coming right now. But he can’t. His balls are hard against the edge of James’s thumb and finger, trying to draw up.

“Gonna come,” says Scorpius, and throws his head back, his hips whipping against Albus’s arse, his blond hair flying back from his head as he catches the first wave of his release. James squeezes Albus’s cock and watches both their faces—Scorpius’s lost in the ecstasy of pleasure, Albus’s lost in the sea of his own submission. The sounds falling from Albus’s mouth are a kind of climax too—short, panting groans he probably doesn’t even know he’s making, as his mind floats somewhere far below his body, which is taken up by Scorpius orgasming inside him, taken up by James beneath him, one hand wrapped tight around his back, the other hand tight around his genitals. 

Scorpius groans once more, longer and louder than Albus, and collapses on top of him, his weight pressing against Albus’s back and forcing Albus flat against James. James moves Albus’s sweaty head to the side. He wants to kiss Scorpius again. Scorpius is panting too hard to kiss properly but he gives James his open mouth. James licks the sweat from Scorpius's upper lip, explores Scorpius's mouth with his tongue. Scorpius captures James’s lower lip between his teeth in response, breathing hard around the sensitive skin. 

Albus is still clinging to James’s shoulders. James moves his hand on Albus’s cock, testing what’s happening there, and then lets go. Albus grunts indistinctly at the loss of pressure.

James nuzzles his cheek. “Gonna fuck you now,” he says softly. “You were so good for your boyfriend. Now be good for me.” 

Albus nods. His eyes are wet, glassy and a little glazed. Scorpius hasn’t moved from where he collapsed on Albus’s back and the two of them are getting a bit heavy on top of James. 

“My turn,” James says to Scorpius.

Scorpius blinks at him, then gets up on his elbows and eases out of Albus. 

“How?” he asks James. 

“Just like this. I want him to ride me. With your come for lube. Help him get positioned, yeah?”

“Oh, yeah.” Scorpius rolls off of Albus, then gets to his knees and strokes his hands down Albus’s sides. 

“It’s your brother’s turn,” he says. He reaches back and fingers Albus; James can’t see exactly where, but Albus responds with a small moan of pleasure. He’s pretty well blown out already, and James fucking him is going to finish him off to perfection. 

“You liked Scorpius fucking you?” James asks. 

“Ye–yeah.” Albus turns his head toward Scorpius, who kisses his cheek rather chastely.

James wipes Albus’s sweaty head, smoothing his perpetually wrecked hair back from his forehead. 

“You want me to fuck you now?”

“Yes. Jamie. Want it so bad. Want—” he breaks off and burrows his head against James’s neck again. “Don’t let go,” he mumbles. 

“I won’t. I’m gonna be deep inside you. You’ll feel me inside you. Gonna hold you in my arms and fuck you, little brother, and I won’t let you go. Now give me your hole.”

Albus gets up on his hands and knees with surprising speed and agility. James is already completely hard, but he strokes himself a few times for good measure as Albus positions himself. James presses in an exploratory finger. Albus’s asshole’s mostly closed again, and dripping with Scorpius’s come. He’s going to fuck right through that. Right now. He lines up his cock, and then wraps his free arm around Albus’s back again. Scorpius, still seated on his knees beside them, presses a hand between Albus’s shoulder blades, just above James’s arm. He gives Albus a little push of encouragement, and Albus drops his head and shoulders down against James again. Then Scorpius reaches back and strokes Albus’s arse cheeks. 

“Fuck him,” Scorpius murmurs to Albus. “Wanna see you fuck him, babe.”

Albus nods against James’s neck. James swallows. The head of his cock is right against his brother’s body, and he can feel Scorpius’s semen leaking over him, hot and wet. Albus breathes deeply and lowers himself down. And then James is inside him again. 

“Oh, God,” he says, not even meaning to. He clutches Albus to him. Something is breaking inside him. Or maybe it’s that something which has been broken for a long time, and hidden away, is now finally being gathered up and wept over. He is weeping over Albus, now that Albus is back. Beautiful broken Albus, who, in James’s arms, is never broken, is always perfect, beautiful, sublime. James can’t even move. All he can do is hold him. 

Albus sinks down all the way, stretched from Scorpius’s pounding. 

“Jamie,” he’s saying, “Jamie. Jamie, oh, Jamie.” Just that, over and over. 

“I’m sorry,” James chokes out. “I’m so sorry, Albus. I won’t ever go away like that again, not anymore. I’m so sorry.” 

“Hey.” Scorpius touches James’s cheek. “It’s okay now.” 

James gulps and nods, trying to stop crying, but he can’t. He’s still hard inside Albus, and the more he cries, the more it goes straight to his cock, because holding back around Albus had meant holding back everything, and now it’s all coming out again. Because Albus is everything to him.

“Al,” Scorpius says above them. “Fuck yourself on him. Do that for James. Do it now.”

Albus nods obediently, and raises himself up on his elbows, rocking back so that his weight is over his legs again. James gazes up at his brother, who is looking down at him. Albus’s wet, wrecked, ink-stained face is smiling a little and it’s the most beautiful thing in the world. 

He begins rocking, his hips and arse working James’s shaft. 

“Just like that,” Scorpius encourages. James reaches up his hands, thinking he should put them on Albus’s waist, but they flutter back to his own mouth, stifling a sob. How could he have ever thought, even for a minute, that he’d be strong enough to make it through the rest of his life without this? He turns his face toward Scorpius, wanting to say something to him, but it’s too much, words are too much. He reaches out a hand again and Scorpius catches it and brings it to Albus’s balls. 

“You play with his bollocks,” Scorpius instructs. “I’ll be in charge of his cock.” 

James nods, still crying. “Albus,” Scorpius says, “hold James’s hand.” Albus pauses in his rocking to take James’s free hand and bring it to his chest, squeezing James’s fingers. With his other hand, he braces himself against James’s shoulder and begins to fuck in earnest. 

Tight, hot, wet. Albus. James’s cock is home. James rolls Albus’s balls in his fingers, caressing the two perfect eggs inside the wrinkled sac. This can’t ever be wrong. It’s too perfect. His hand holding his brother. His brother’s hand holding his, pressing it against himself so James can feel Albus’s heart beating. And Albus fucking himself on James. Albus shifts his hips a bit, searching for the angle he wants. 

“Yeah,” Scorpius growls beside them, and suddenly James is back in action. His hips thrust up, his pushing his cock deep inside his brother. 

“Fuck, yes,” Albus hisses out, and James does it again. His body’s taking over now, tears or no tears. His body knows what to do. Just fuck. Fuck him, hips jerking, heart pounding, Albus on top of him, here, here, here. The feel of his brother’s weight each time Albus pounds down, the sweet sweet flesh of his arse tense against the tops of James’s thighs. 

“You like that?” Scorpius asks. 

“Yeah,” Albus answers, “I like it. Like James. Love James. Love you, Scorp. Love James. Just—oh, God—just—”

Scorpius reaches out and, just as James did before, he makes a sudden cock ring of his thumb and forefinger, wrapping them tight around the base of Albus’s shaft. Scorpius might be controlling when Albus comes, but right now Albus belongs to James. He thrusts up into his brother, taking what’s his, what’s always been his, and beneath his brother’s bouncing arse, James’s balls draw up inside him as his orgasm begins to uncoil. 

_Fuck him, fuck him like this, fuck him with his heart beating hard against your hand, fuck him with his hand gripping your shoulder. With his green eyes looking down at your brown ones, with his mouth open and moaning, with his whole body lust-blown with pleasure, with the rightness of this._

“Gonna come,” James mouths, and bucks forward, his torso half-rising off the bed with the force of it. He is coming inside his brother. And then Scorpius lets go of Albus’s cock and Albus is coming too, his balls rising up from James’s hand, his anus spasming around James’s cock, milking wave after wave of pleasure from James’s shaking body. Every wave washing him up on the shore that is Albus. It might break him and he doesn’t care. He is here, inside his brother. James empties himself inside his brother and knows he is home. 

The sound coming out of Albus is not a word, not a wail, not a whimper. It is just sound, pure and unbroken, leaving his mouth as his spunk leaves his cock, arcing in the little space between their bodies and spattering James’s belly. The sound goes on with his orgasm, and dies only when Albus loses breath. His cock spurts one last time and he collapses on James again, one hand still clutching James’s hand against his chest. And then:

It’s there. Albus’s magic. That shy, most precious thing. Deep blue, so blue it almost has a scent. James has never experienced anything like it from any other witch or wizard. The sweet blue dark of Albus’s magic unfurls like the vine of a night-blooming flower and wraps itself loosely around James’s chest, then rises into the air again and loops around Scorpius as well. 

James is not sure if Scorpius experiences the magic the same way he does, but a shiver of pleasure snakes through him when it touches him. Then his body relaxes and he turns to Albus, his clear grey eyes shining in relief. 

“Come here,” James says to Scorpius, working his hand free from under his brother and extending it toward the other boy. 

Scorpius’s face lights up even more; that same look that, a couple of hours ago, James had thought made him look like desperate puppy. 

But now? James pulls Scorpius in beside him until that pale blond head is resting on his shoulder. Now it feels like a gift to be looked at so openly, so hopefully. To be looked at by someone who wants to be liked, cared about, loved, even. And why not? He runs his fingers through Scorpius’s hair. Scorpius is a good person, a good boyfriend. And he’s not James’s enemy. He never was. 

“I’m sorry, Scorpius,” James says into his blond hair. “About before. How I acted.” It’s a relief to speak the words, and perhaps Scorpius feels that too. He wriggles closer to James, nosing into his hair, those soft lips brushing against James’s earlobe, warm breath at the cup of his ear. 

“We can both love him,” Scorpius whispers. “He needs both of us, you know.”

James nods. It’s so obviously true that there’s nothing else to say about it.

So he presses a kiss to Scorpius’s forehead, inhaling the scent of him, which by now is mostly the mingled raw musk of their combined rutting. 

Scorpius butts his head affectionately against James. 

“You’re the best,” James whispers, and inhales again, catching a faint whiff of expensive soap and there, behind the soap, the strange, beautiful smell of Albus’s magic again. He turns his attention back to his brother, who is resting on James’s chest as if he’s asleep—eyes closed, his breathing slow and even. He’s not asleep, James doesn’t think, but it’s something like sleep—the deep, dreamless rest that comes whenever Albus has been freed once more from whatever it is that takes root inside him like Devil’s Snare, tightening harder around him the more he struggles to get free. But it’s gone for now. James inhales deeply once again, inhaling Albus. The dark blue smell of his magic is working on James like a potion; he too, wants to rest now. It’s been five months since he’s really slept well, after all. James closes his eyes, Albus on top of him and Scorpius nuzzled against his neck. He could fall asleep right now and sleep all night. He’d miss Arithmancy, and Quidditch practice later. He can’t be arsed to care, though. Not when he everything he needs is right here.

**Author's Note:**

> _you're in my blood like holy wine_   
>  _you taste so bitter and so sweet_   
>  _oh, I could drink a case of you_   
>  _and I would still be on my feet_   
>    
>  _\--Joni Mitchell_


End file.
